How To: Successful Online Cover Song

Let’s begin by introducing three different versions of cover songs on YouTube – which will be discussed more in depth in a bit. The first video is Justin Bieber before he became famous. He actually started out as a youtube singer, and although I am not a fan of him at all, I don’t think you can discuss successful online covers without mentioning him. The second video is one of my favorite covers online. And not just because it’s from my church, Flatirons Community Church, or because the man singing, Tommy, is a friend of mine and one of the nicest people on the face of the earth – although that does play a role. It’s just a damn good cover. Also, I know it only says it has around 7,000 views, but it actually has a crap ton more if viewed during the full service on the church’s website since the church is viewed in over 100 countries. Lastly, we have Cathy May. She’s so bad she’s fantastic. Her video has over 3 million views because of how terrible and funny she is.

Take a moment to appreciate these videos.

Okay. So the most important thing to making an online cover is to either have talent or be memorable. In the words of Tommy the other day, “what I lack in creativity I make up for in originality”. Although he said that sarcastically, I still think it’s applicable because all of these covers have a sense of originality that have caused them to stick with their audience. The Justin Bieber video for example, his originality in his covers is what caused him to explode into the international pop star that he is. Tommy’s cover has originality because he modernized a classic song. As well as the fact that those two are obviously talented. And Cathy May, we’ll she’s the epitome of original. Her entire video is very memorable. From the way she hardly ever looks at the camera to her random little dance moves throughout.

Another important step, which all of these people have, is a “hub”; individuals form loose social associations around a central figure, as in the case of fan clubs. After a while they begin to build up an online fan base that get’s committed to watching their videos. Many people love to watch Cathy May videos. Anytime I miss a church service that Tommy sang at I watch it online because I love when he sings.

Make sure your “hub” or “fan base” has a platform to circulate your video. It is best to make sure that it can be shared via Facebook since many of the people that spread media have affiliations with social networking platforms. If you can get a video into circulation than you can bet on it’s spreadability from there on out.

That’s the few things you need to have a successful youtube video. Be memorable, be original, and build yourself a hub. From there your song cover can spread around the internet. To guarantee stickiness is another step. With that you need to impact the viewer with your content. Cathy May sticks with many people because she makes us laugh. Tommy sticks with a lot of people because of the community he is a part of is a shared community that many of the viewers are a part of (Flatirons Community Church), although there are a lot of people who happen across FCC covers online – further showing the power of spreadability.

Blog 3: Let’s talk about Kony 2012

Now, oddly, I am not one of the 99 million plus people to have watched this video. But this is a prime example of spreadability and how amateur media can be far spreading. This was never displayed on television, as far as I am concerned, but mention Kony 2012 to almost anyone in college and they will get a smirk on their face – some might get angry. This video struck such a large emotional response from it’s viewers that it literally had people throwing their money to support a cause they really didn’t know anything about. This is a perfect example of how content on the internet can spread like wildfire and exemplifies each of the following bullet points about spreadable media:

-To generate active commitment from the audience,
-To empower them and make them an integral part of your product’s success,
-To benefit from online word-of-mouth
-To reach niche, highly interconnected audiences,
-But most of all, to communicate with audiences where they already are, and in a way that they value.

 

Blog #2: This dad knows what’s up

This is a great example of a remix, I think. I took the song “Rude” which is about this guy telling the dad of his girlfriend that he’s going to marry the daughter whether or not he has the father’s blessing, and made it a “hell no you ain’t” thing. Like the text said, “‘creating’ is becoming an increasingly dominant form of ‘writing'”, and the father created his “writing” through the available technology (webcam) and through the use of music. Although this is a use of copy-write material it is definitely considered creative because the father rewrote the lyrics and changed the message of the song to be from a parents POV.

 

Exercise One – “Wrecking Ball” Chatroulette

In this video we have YouTube comedian Steve Kardynal dressed up as Miley Cyrus dancing around in front of a webcam reenacting the “Wrecking Ball” music video to the random Chatroulette members that show up on his screen. This video is hilarious and it quickly went viral. It was popping up all over facebook for weeks. I would argue that it is a prime example of viral media. YouTube and Chatroulette are both two major platforms for connecting people on a global scale, so creating a video using Chatroulette and posting it on YouTube enhanced it’s spreadability. Also including the fact that using Chatroulette as a platform of this viral video engaged many communities worldwide all at once. Also, having taken a song that was currently charting at the time, “Wrecking Ball”, it enhanced the spreadability of this video because it involved aspects of pop culture at the time. Along with aspects of pop culture creating spreadability, Steve Kardynal also created a viral video by utilized media sharing and collaborative platforms to create the viralness of this video. This video also contains elements of stickiness because it holds the attention of those watching it. As the audience you want to know what the reaction of the next person will be and what parts of the risque “Wrecking Ball” music video he is going to mimick. Due to the humor aspect of this video and it’s relation to pop culture it went viral and accumulated around 117 million hits on YouTube. Many of us quickly became multipliers of this video after it getting posted on facebook and us sharing it, creating an exponential increase in the viralness of the video. In order for a video to be classified as viral it needs to be something that will resonate with internet culture, a majority of internet users will understand, and it must maintain our attention. This video, as discussed above, represents all these characteristics. The video is “sticky” because it resonates with a majority of the internet community and holds our attention throughout the course of the video. The video has spreadability because it’s content and the humor behind it can be understood by anymore who has a minor sense of pop culture, and it creates multipliers out of the viewers because many people choose to share it with our friends on social media. It is interesting how viral media on the internet is produced. By taking aspects of pop culture and internet culture and setting it on a specific medium it can spread vastly across the internet in days.

This video also exemplifies participatory culture in a unique way. It is one of few viral videos I am seen that involve the participation of random internet users around the world thus creating this unique Participatory Culture in itself. The video as a lone entity is participatory culture. But then once in the hands of the public we participate by spreading it around the internet and making it more accessible to others.

Blog Entry One:

Let’s be real. This GIF is totally how all of felt while watching the Olympics this past year. I’m sure most of us have seen Parks & Rec, or if not, have seen memes of Ron Swanson. He is frequently used in Internet Culture to portray American Pride and the American lifestyle. So the “fidelity’ of this GIF is strong, because most anyone who looks at it gets the message that is meant to be expressed due to our familiarity with the show and our exposure to memes involving Ron Swanson. The GIF attached to this has “fecundity” because you can take the flag/Ron imagery and apply it to any aspect of American pride.

 

***sorry for it being glitchy, it doesn’t normally do that***

About Me…

Hello. My name is Troy Seppala.

I am a senior and majoring in Communication. I like it.

I have previously taken Creative Writing, which I highly recommend, and then some boring required writing courses.

I am taking this course because it is required to graduate, but I chose this topic because technology is just a big part of our culture today and I figured it was the most interesting of the choices.

I think that “participatory culture” is a collective culture that gets created and shaped by those that choose to take part in it. An example of a participatory culture is the internet and how there has become a worldwide internet culture via mediums like Reddit and Tumblr.

My most used social media platform is definitely Instagram. I use that waaayyy too much.